all these, do
these classic porticoes and pediments of Italy, and they seem to stare,
conscious of a discordance and a lack of harmony in the German air. But
in the old town there is beauty still; in the timbered house-fronts, in
the barred and sculptured casements, in the mighty gables, in the gilded
and pictured signs, in the sunburnt walls, in the grey churches, in the
furriers' stalls, in the toysellers' workshops, in the beetling
fortresses, in the picturesque waysides, here is the old Munich of the
Minnesingers and master masons, of the burghers and the _burschen_, of
the Schefflertanz, and of the merry Christchild Fair. And old Munich
keeps all to itself, whether with winter snow on its eaves, or summer
leaves in its lattices; and here the maidens still wear coloured
kerchiefs on their heads and clattering shoes on their feet; and here
the students still look like etchings for old ballads, with long hair on
their shoulders and grey cloaks worn jauntily; and here something of the
odour and aspect of the Middle Ages lingers as about an illuminated roll
of vellum that has lain long put away and forgotten in a desk, with
faded rose-leaves and a miniature that has no name.

The Munich of builder-king Ludwig is grand, no doubt, and tedious and
utterly out of place, with mountains of marble and granite, and acres of
canvas more or less divine, and vast straight streets that make one weep
from weariness, and frescoed walls with nude women that seem to shiver
in the bitter Alpine winds; it is great, no doubt, but ponderously
unlovely, like the bronze Bavaria that looks over the plain, who can
hold six men in her head, but can never get fire in her eyes nor
meaning in her mouth--clumsy Athenae-Artemis that she is.

New Munich, striving to be Athens or Rome, is monotonous and tiresome,
but old Munich is quaint and humble, and historical and romancical, with
its wooden pavements under foot, and its clouds of doves above head;
indeed, has so much beauty of its own, like any old painted Missal or
golden goblet of the _moyen age_, that it seems incredible to think that
any man could ever have had the heart to send the hammers of masons
against it, and set up bald walls of plaster in its stead. Wandering in
old Munich--there is not much of it left, alas!--is like reading a
black-letter ballad about Henry the Lion or Kaiser Max; it has sombre
nooks and corners, bright gleams of stained casements, bold oriels, and
sculptured shi